Planting Time

Fall is time to plant and clean up.  I have several shipments coming this fall.  All of the spots are marked and ready for the new plants.  I already have a surprise.  So far, everything that I requested has arrived. I tried a couple new supplies.  The first one has been great.  I will receive the second shipment from a new supplier next week.  

I will be cleaning up the old flowers next week.  Some of the plants have changed colour with the fall.  They look lovely.  This year I will wait until the leaves are ready to come off the  Itoh plants before cutting them back.  Last year I cut them back a little early and noticed a bud forming after the cut.  Be sure to remove any of the foliage and throw it out.  It seems the first year plant have a harder time with Botrytis blight, I have even read about changing the soil around the plant to avoid contaminating next year's growth. The Itoh plants seem to handle the relocation better. I stopped putting mulch around the plants.  One year I put it in the old bed of peonies that I have had since I moved here.  The plants looked horrible the fallowing year.  They were covered in black spots and mold.  This had never happened before.  I am still trying to get this bed to recover.  Each fall I cut away the foliage, add peat moss to the bed and fertilize. They are slowly recovering.

Next year the new garden will be complete, with the exception of the two plants that did not survive the spring.  I will have to replace them.  I think that I will move Coral Charm from the yellow bed.  I am not sure yet where to put the plant.  It has grown quite large since I first put it in two years ago.  The coral bed is already full of plants.  I might have to start another bed.  The coral plants are one of the first groups to bloom in the spring.  Coral Charm was the first coral peonies that I bought.  I was so happy with the colour.  Maybe one of the other coral plants will be disappointing and I can move Coral Charm into that spot. I have already arranged for the yellow plant to put in the spot of Coral Charm.

As you can tell, I am already dreaming about the new plants that are going into the garden.  I have already filled the new bed around the pool and have been looking around to see where I can put another bed.  I am definitely hooked on peonies.  I keep going over the web sites and picking more plants that I would like to have.
I am still trying to find out the names of some of the old plants that came with the property.  I have started looking for places that have peonies gardens with old varieties that I can visit to see if I can identify the plants.  I will have all winter to dream about them.....

Peonies Blooms Coming to An End

It has been two weeks since I last posted pictures.  There were so many peonies and so little time to enjoy them.  I visited a private garden that had many more beautiful peonies, that mine is but a dream in comparison.  I have a few more pictures of the garden to share with you.

Here are some more of the pinks that bloomed

Angel Cheeks

 

Fancy Nancy

Emile Debantene

Hermoine

Sarah Bernhardt

 

This was sent as Black Beauty.




Bowl of Beauty had lots of blossoms.

Auten's Pride

 

Lauren

 

Queen of Hamburg

Tom Eckhardt

Whopper

 

 

 

Here are some of the whites:

 

 

Krinkled White

 

 

 

 

 

La Cygne had five blossoms that opened at once on the same stem.

 

 

 

Shirley Temple

Top Brass

Nick Shaylor

And Some more of the Reds:

 

Barrington Belle

 

 

Brands Magnificent

 

Chestine Growdy

Clown

 

Paul M Wild

Midnight Sun

Betty Warner

Hot Chocolate

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am sure that I have missed some of them.  The pink that came with the house is just opened now, I think it might be Humei.  It has a wonderful hint of cinnamon scent when it first opens.  We have had so much rain, that even in the raised beds the roots have standing water around them.  Some of the other flowers in the garden are now starting to come out.  I hope that you have enjoyed some of the pictures from the garden this year.  I will be expecting some more peonies to add to the peonies garden this fall.  I will only be adding bare roots.  This seems to be the most successful way to have plants that will bloom and grow to healthy plants.  I have become a member of the Canadian Peony Society.  The members are so great and supportive.  If you have peonies I would suggest you join. Have a great summer!

Pinks in Bloom

Do Tell is from the white garden.  It is pink now.  I am hoping the guard petals will turn to white as I have seen in most of the pictures on the internet.  This plant did not bloom last year, but has two blossoms this year.  The white garden is a little later than the pinks.

Monsieur Jule Elie looks a lot like the plant from the house I was born in that is already in the pink bed as an unknown, but the fragrance is different.  It looks much different now that it is established in my garden, then it did in the pot when I bought it last year. 

Nellie Saylor opened yesterday in the warm weather.  This is a delightful flower is second year in the garden and is merged into the pink bed, where it is hard to tell where one plant ends and the next begins.  There are plants that have been here on the property for more than 30 years.  They have just been moved around and split up.  Nellie Saylor however was purchased as a bare root in the fall of 2011 and bloomed last year.  This year there are only a few more blossoms on the plant.  I love the new colours and shape it brings to the pink bed.  In a couple of days Bowl of Beauty will also be blooming.

Sorbet is out to greet the sun.  It is a little more delicate than Raspberry Sundae.  It has several blossoms on the plant.  As I take my friends around to see the garden, they always stop to look at this one.  It has more to the yellow in the flower than any of the other multicolored plants I have.

The Many Faces of Coral Sunset

Now that Lemon Chiffon is finished blooming, my new favorite is Coral Sunset.  This flower starts out a lovely coral and then fades to a gorgeous yellow with hints of coral on the bottom side.  Next year when the plant is more established it will have some of the yellow and coral flowers on the same plant.  It is place perfectly transitioning between the coral and yellow beds.  It currently sits beside Garden Treasure which is also in bloom.  Coral Sunset is new to the garden this year and is doing very well.

 

Garden Treasure is new to the garden in the yellow bed. This flower I first saw at the Oshawa Botanical gardens and fell in love with the colour and shape. 

It is competing with Viking Full Moon.  Viking Full Moon is a second year plant and is much more established with lots of blooms on it.  It is an Itoh. As much as this is a lovely plant it is sitting beside Bartzella.  Since I am a big fan of double flowers I am easily distracted.  Bartzella is also a second year plant and has lots of blooms on it this year.

Bartzella

Raspberry Sundae looks good enough to eat this year.  The pink on the yellow base cupped in pink again. In the background you can see Prairie Moon still blooming.  The yellow garden from last year is really coming together. It however is not competition to the pink garden.  The pink garden is full of plants I have had for a long time.

 

Finally Some Warm Weather

The rain stop for a few hours today and the sun came out.  This was great for the peonies.

This is Sunny Girl.  This flower stayed as a bud for more than a week. Today it finally opened.  Along with many other flowers.

 

The sun brought out Coral Magic

Coral Sunset

 

Coral Charm
 



Shirley Temple

Top Brass

 



Celebrity

Prairie Moon

 

 

Felix Crousse

 

If it stays warm for a few days the entire beds will be in bloom at once.  The unknown pink from my Aunt's house is blooming too.

Along with the pink flower that came from the house that I was born in.

The plants that have been in the bed for two years now are looking very good.  There are still two plants that will not bloom again this year, but the plants are very healthy.  I can always hope that they will bloom next year. In the next few days there should be lots more that will open.  There are many empty spaces along the sides that will need plants. Most of the empty places are already ordered for fall delivery.

 Now that the plants are bigger, I do not like the one Coral Charm in the yellow bed.  I will need to move it to the side border that is all coral flowers and wait a year, than add another yellow in the yellow bed.  I think it will look much better.

Stop bye in the next couple of days, there should be pictures of several other varieties that are in bloom. 

 

 

 

Oshawa Peony Festival

I only had two peonies to enter in the show.  One was the Red Charm, that was full of water from the rain the day before, and the second was Lemon Chiffon, that had already been blooming for three days in the garden.  The one Lemon Chiffon I had ear marked to bring to the show was bigger, but had been blooming for over a week. It had past it's prime.

 This was the first year I had ever brought a flower to the show and I won Best In Show.   I did not realize at first, that this was the highest award you could get!  I was just overwhelmed with the wonderful people that I met.  It was such an honor to meet the fellow gardeners. I had read about the start of the garden on the internet, but it was special hearing the story from the people that made it happen.  I hope to make more of a contribution to the Canadian Peony Society in the coming years. 

Hear I am with Judi Denny.  She met me early Friday morning and helped me fill out the forms.  She shook out more of the water from Red Charm to help the flower show better.  Judi has a wealth of knowledge about the peonies and more importantly the people that are in the industry.  Later in the day she greeted me at the door and introduced me to many more people at the show.  She told me the story of winning the Best In Show and that she had no way of contacting me, since I did not leave a number or an address.  After I left the flowers in the morning, I went home to do some transplanting and weeding.  I went back to buy some more peonies with my daughter, and to see how I did.  You can just image the looks on both of our faces. 

The community of gardens, and the passion for some of the flowers is heart warming.  The Internet is making more people get together that share a common interest.  I have emailed or spoken to growers across Canada, in the US and as far away as Holland.  One of my pictures of Coral Charm is featured on the Swedish Peony Society and can be seen currently on their website.  It really is a small world after all.

Congratulations to all of the people the won ribbons in the show, and thank you to everyone that contributed to make this show possible.